You are at home again; not your own home,—that is gone,—but at the home of Nelly and of Frank. The city heats of summer drive you to the country. You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and memories, over the hill-sides that once bounded your boyish vision. Here you netted the wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk to feed; there, upon that tall chestnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel. The old maples are even now scarred with the rude cuts you gave them in sappy March.

You sit down upon some height overlooking the valley where you were born; you trace the faint, silvery line of river; you detect by the leaning elm your old bathing-place upon the Saturdays of Summer. Your eye dwells upon some patches of pasture-wood which were famous for their nuts. Your rambling and saddened vision roams over the houses; it traces the familiar chimney-stacks; it searches out the low-lying cottages; it dwells upon the gray roof sleeping yonder under the sycamores.

Tears swell in your eye as you gaze; you cannot tell whence or why they come. Yet they are tears eloquent of feeling. They speak of brother-children,—of boyish glee,—of the flush of young health,—of a mother's devotion,—of the home affections,—of the vanities of life,—of the wasting years,—of the Death that must shroud what friends remain, as it has shrouded what friends have gone,—and of that Great Hope, beaming on your seared manhood dimly from the upper world!

Your wealth suffices for all the luxuries of life; there is no fear of coming want; health beats strong in your veins; you have learned to hold a place in the world with a man's strength, and a man's confidence. And yet in the view of those sweet scenes which belonged to early days, when neither strength, confidence, nor wealth were yours,—days never to come again,—a shade of melancholy broods upon your spirit, and covers with its veil all that fierce pride which your worldly wisdom has wrought.

You visit again with Frank the country homestead of his grandfather: he is dead; but the old lady still lives; and blind Fanny, now drawing toward womanhood, wears yet through her darkened life the same air of placid content, and of sweet trustfulness in Heaven. The boys, whom you astounded with your stories of books, are gone, building up now with steady industry the queen cities of our new western land. The old clergyman is gone from the desk, and from under his sounding board; he sleeps beneath a brown stone slab in the churchyard. The stout deacon is dead; his wig and his wickedness rest together. The tall chorister sings yet; but they have now a bass-viol—handled by a new schoolmaster—in place of his tuning-fork; and the years have sown feeble quavers in his voice.

Once more you meet at the home of Nelly the blue-eyed Madge. The sixpence is all forgotten; you cannot tell where your half of it is gone. Yet she is beautiful, just budding into the full ripeness of womanhood. Her eyes have a quiet, still joy, and hope beaming in them, like angel's looks. Her motions have a native grace and freedom that no culture can bestow. Her words have a gentle earnestness and honesty that could never nurture guile.

You had thought after your gay experiences of the world to meet her with a kind condescension, as an old friend of Nelly's. But there is that in her eye which forbids all thought of condescension. There is that in her air which tells of a high womanly dignity, which can only be met on equal ground. Your pride is piqued. She has known—she must know your history; but it does not tame her. There is no marked and submissive appreciation of your gifts as a man of the world.

She meets your happiest compliments with a very easy indifference; she receives your elegant civilities with a very assured brow. She neither courts your society, nor avoids it. She does not seek to provoke any special attention. And only when your old self glows in some casual kindness to Nelly, does her look beam with a flush of sympathy.

This look touches you. It makes you ponder on the noble heart that lives in Madge. It makes you wish it were yours. But that is gone. The fervor and the honesty of a glowing youth is swallowed up in the flash and splendor of the world. A half-regret chases over you at nightfall, when solitude pierces you with the swift dart of gone-by memories. But at morning the regret dies in the glitter of ambitious purposes.

The summer months linger; and still you linger with them. Madge is often with Nelly; and Madge is never less than Madge. You venture to point your attentions with a little more fervor; but she meets the fervor with no glow. She knows too well the habit of your life.

Strange feelings come over you,—feelings like half-forgotten memories,—musical, dreamy, doubtful. You have seen a hundred faces more brilliant than that of Madge; you have pressed a hundred jewelled hands that have returned a half-pressure to yours. You do not exactly admire; to love you have forgotten; you only—linger!

It is a soft autumn evening, and the harvest-moon is red and round over the eastern skirt of woods. You are attending Madge to that little cottage-home where lives that gentle and doting mother, who, in the midst of comparative poverty, cherishes that refined delicacy which never comes to a child but by inheritance.

Madge has been passing the day with Nelly. Something—it may be the soft autumn air, wafting toward you the freshness of young days—moves you to speak as you have not ventured to speak, as your vanity has not allowed you to speak before.

"You remember, Madge, (you have guarded this sole token of boyish intimacy,) our split sixpence?"

"Perfectly;" it is a short word to speak, and there is no tremor in her tone,—not the slightest.

"You have it yet?"

"I dare say I have it somewhere;"—no tremor now; she is very composed.

"That was a happy time;"—very great emphasis on the word happy.

"Very happy;"—no emphasis anywhere.

"I sometimes wish I might live it over again."

"Yes?"—inquiringly.

"There are, after all, no pleasures in the world like those."

"No?"—inquiringly again.

You thought you had learned to have language at command; you never thought, after so many years' schooling of the world, that your pliant tongue would play you truant. Yet now you are silent.

The moon steals silvery into the light flakes of cloud, and the air is soft as May. The cottage is in sight. Again you risk utterance:—

"You must live very happily here."

"I have very kind friends;"—the very is emphasized.

"I am sure Nelly loves you very much."

"Oh, I believe it!"—with great earnestness.

You are at the cottage-door.—

"Good night, Maggie;"—very feelingly.

"Good night, Clarence;"—very kindly; and she draws her hand coyly, and half tremulously, from your somewhat fevered grasp.

You stroll away dreamily, watching the moon,—running over your fragmentary life,—half moody, half pleased, half hopeful.

You come back stealthily, and with a heart throbbing with a certain wild sense of shame, to watch the light gleaming in the cottage. You linger in the shadows of the trees until you catch a glimpse of her figure gliding past the window. You bear the image home with you. You are silent on your return. You retire early, but you do not sleep early.

----If you were only as you were: if it were not too late! If Madge could only love you, as you know she will and must love one manly heart, there would be a world of joy opening before you. But it is too late!

You draw out Nelly to speak of Madge: Nelly is very prudent. "Madge is a dear girl," she says. Does Nelly even distrust you? It is a sad thing to be too much a man of the world!

You go back again to noisy, ambitious life: you try to drown old memories in its blaze and its vanities. Your lot seems cast beyond all change, and you task yourself with its noisy fulfilment. But amid the silence and the toil of your office-hours, a strange desire broods over your spirit,—a desire for more of manliness,—that manliness which feels itself a protector of loving and trustful innocence.

You look around upon the faces in which you have smiled unmeaning smiles: there is nothing there to feed your dawning desires. You meet with those ready to court you by flattering your vanity, by retailing the praises of what you may do well, by odious familiarity, by brazen proffer of friendship, but you see in it only the emptiness and the vanity which you have studied to enjoy.

Sickness comes over you, and binds you for weary days and nights,—in which life hovers doubtfully, and the lips babble secrets that you cherish. It is astonishing how disease clips a man from the artificialities of the world! Lying lonely upon his bed, moaning, writhing, suffering, his soul joins on to the universe of souls by only natural bonds. The factitious ties of wealth, of place, of reputation, vanish from his bleared eyes; and the earnest heart, deep under all, craves only heartiness!

The old craving of the office silence comes back,—not with the proud wish only of being a protector, but—of being protected. And whatever may be the trust in that beneficent Power who "chasteneth whom he loveth," there is yet an earnest, human yearning toward some one, whose love—most, and whose duty—least, would call her to your side; whose soft hands would cool the fever of yours, whose step would wake a throb of joy, whose voice would tie you to life, and whose presence would make the worst of Death—an Adieu!

As you gain strength once more, you go back to Nelly's home. Her kindness does not falter; every care and attention belong to you there. Again your eye rests upon that figure of Madge, and upon her face, wearing an even gentler expression as she sees you sitting pale and feeble by the old hearth-stone. She brings flowers—for Nelly: you beg Nelly to place them upon the little table at your side. It is as yet the only taste of the country that you can enjoy. You love those flowers.

After a time you grow strong, and walk in the fields, You linger until nightfall. You pass by the cottage where Madge lives. It is your pleasantest walk. The trees are greenest in that direction; the shadows are softest; the flowers are thickest.

It is strange—this feeling in you. It is not the feeling you had for Laura Dalton. It does not even remind of that. That was an impulse, but this is growth. That was strong, but this is strength. You catch sight of her little notes to Nelly; you read them over and over; you treasure them; you learn them by heart. There is something in the very writing that touches you.

You bid her adieu with tones of kindness that tremble,—and that meet a half-trembling tone in reply. She is very good.

----If it were not too late!